Former Alaskan Palace to be used for NIOSA

This building at 102-104 Navarro St. once housed the Alaskan Palace restaurant and bar.

There was some buzz surrounding the building formerly occupied by the Alaskan Palace because of recent visible construction.

The San Antonio Conservation Society purchased the building in 1998. Work to renovate the building’s facade was completed in 2006. This morning, the society celebrated the completion of a 1,500-square-foot kitchen inside the building. The building’s total size is 4,000 square feet.

The kitchen will be used for prep work on the food that’s sold at NIOSA, which runs Tuesday-Friday next week. Frog legs, big vats of gravy for fried mushrooms and fruit kabobs are among the items that will be prepped in the new kitchen.

The project also includes the repaving of the adjacent parking lot. The kitchen and the parking lot project cost around $190,000.

Rollette Schreckenghost, president of the Conservation Society, said the group is still trying to find a tenant for the rest of the building.

“We would like to see maybe a nonprofit,” Schreckenghost said. “We’ll work with anybody.”